"Cars That Never Were" is a great little book. It has lots of great photos of styling studies and prototypes that never made it beyond the concept stage. My favorites photos are the ones of the two Studebaker Avanti sedans designed by Raymond Loewy.

I guess it was meant to be a failure like the Edsel! That's probably why the 60's put an end to the 50's excesses. Thus, cars went from teeth showing giants (like the 1959 Caddy) to Jackie O's slenderness and beauty like the 1961 Lincoln Continental! Nevertheless, it'd be nice to see a DeSoto like that on the summer shows!

Another factor is the trendy, fashion conscious nature of the American car buyer. During the 1950's showy excess was the style. After this fad ran its course the reaction was a trend toward cleaner less ornate designs. For a few years during the late 1950's and early 1960's compact cars were very fashionable.

Through the 1960's and 1970's full sized cars continued to grown in size until after the 1973 OPEC embargo. From the mid-1970's through the mid-1980's the trend was toward smaller, more fuel efficient cars. This trend was bolstered by the first CAFE laws which required car makers to invest more of their resources in smaller cars. As a result, by the end of the 1980's there were only a handfull of full-sized, rwd cars still in production.

By the late 1980's fuel prices had stabilized and people began buying larger vehicles again. The result was the SUV/pickup craze that lasted until the 2008 gas price spike. By the time this fad ended ended pickups and SUVs had become just as bloated and cartoonish as the big cars of the 1950's and 1970's.

Today Americans are trending back toward smaller cars and the latest CAFE laws are also pushing the car companies in this direction.

Does this prototype exist? Its really interesting styling.Just by its looks you can see where many of Chryslers styling cues came from.It sure strayed from the DeSoto's of the late 1940's.Those cars bring back fond memories of growing up in that era.